Longtime fans of musician Tori Amos are aware that she’s willing to take risks with genre and form. Though she’s delved into conceptual works in the past, exploring religion, gender, and mythology on previous discs, her new album, Night of Hunters, is a bona fide song cycle, taking inspiration from classical works spanning the last 400 years including Bach and Schubert. And it’s a history-making album as well, simultaneously topping Billboard’s Classical Crossover, Classical Overall Debut, and Top 10 Alternative and Rock Charts.

Amos sat down with The Advocate (coincidentally on the date of the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell”) and discussed the inspiration for the album, the story it tells of the potential dissolution of a marriage and the woman’s journey through time with a magical animal guide, a fox named Annabelle voiced by Amos’s daughter Natasha. Amos describes the connection between Night of Hunters and the musical she’s been working on for several years, and how touring with a classical quartet has inspired her to re-arrange many songs from her vast catalogue. A longtime supporter of LGBT equality, Amos also puts in her two cents about the folly of taxation without equal rights.